Sunday, July 31, 2016

Endure to the END

July 6, 2016
    Today was the last p-day where I had to do and activity that I didn’t want to do. We went to estacion central and I got one last souvenir for everyone.  Overall, I literally spent about 40 minutes doing my stuff. 
Miracle # 697: I. stopped working in his little store so he may now have more time to go to church.
    The funny part of the day was also very frustrating to me.  When we got to I. house, he was watching a movie and instead of helping me teach or ask to turn off the movie, he made me do it.  To be fair, I got sucked in a little bit before coming to my senses and getting to work. 
July 7, 2016
    Today was a pretty good day.  This morning we had a little breakfast and study with another missionary house and it was weird because everyone was looking up to me and my companion for how much time we have in the mission.  After that, my comp and I did our weekly planning and had just the usual swell time.  We didn’t argue too much so that’s good.  Most of our plans fell through, but there were a few tender mercies today.
Miracle #698: During our lesson that we had in our chapel, a member just randomly came in and we invited her to participate and then convinced her to go with us to the lesson afterwards.  First divs of the week.
    The funny part of the day was lunch at the bishop’s house.  It was one of those “you have to be there things”, but we were all laughing like crazy.  The bishop’s crazy RM son was laughing so hard that he began to cough and then vomit. 
July 8, 2016
    Today we had a meeting with all of the missionaries who are going home this next transfer and the goal of the meeting was to motivate us to keep working.  Unfortunately, when we got out of the meeting and back to work, we had a fairly crappy day overall. Most of our plans fell through and the ones that didn’t weren’t that good.
Miracle #699: We got baptismal clothes for M. and they actually fit!  Usually you have to frantically search at the last minute, but we were on top of it this time!
    The funny part of the day was probably setting up for the ward activity that the ward mission program is putting on tomorrow.  It was funny because they turned on the radio in the chapel and we all dancing around like crazy to some pretty vulgar techno crap. I was pretty bothered by it.
July 9, 2016
    Today was a long day.  This morning M. had his baptismal interview with Elder Dowdy and passed.  I really love that kid.  He is super spacey, but is a very sweet and genuine person. After the interview, we did a few things in the chapel and went to lunch.  We were supposed to go and make food for the ward activity at 3:30, but we waited for over an hour for someone to show up.  The family in charge of making sopapillas showed up a half and hour after that.  The activity was supposed to start at 5:00, but everyone got there at 6:00.  The activity was called Jacana Sudamericana and it was basically tons of food from a bunch of South American countries. Everyone just stuffed themselves and I got super sick from eating food that I am not used to eating. After the activity, we had to clean the chapel and the baptismal font for the baptism and for church tomorrow.  I was in a very bad mood going our to work this evening because I felt sick from over eating.  Elder A. was very patient and tried to help me out.
Miracle #700: Asplund was inspired to go to a certain house and when we got there, the guy that we were looking for wasn’t home, but his son was and his son was super interested in our message.
July 10, 2016
    Today was really long.  No one came to church except for a Haitian man we contacted in the streets during our consecration week.  We had a ward mission meeting even though our ward mission leader didn’t come, and we had a ward executive committee meeting as well.  After church we went looking for 6 people, none of whom were home.  After church we went to a small lunch and I was shocked by what the family was watching on TV.  I am not ready to return to that part of life.
Miracle #701: It was raining and we had not plans, but we went to a new investigators to get out of the rain.  They were home and let us in out of the rain. Also, Manuel got baptized today!


   

 The funny part of the day was when Elder Morales didn’t baptize Manuel correctly, but the bishop said it was fine so they didn’t redo it.  Elder Asplund suggested that they do it again, but they ignored him.  Oh well, the bishop is in charge I guess.  It has been a long time since I have had a baptism in my ward let alone my sector.  Even though it has been a decent week over all, Asplund and I are getting tired.
July 11, 2016
    Today was a long one despite being good.  This morning I was doing my exercises a little later than I should have when my companion made me feel guilty so I quit.  I hurried and got all ready to go on time, when the office called and told us that we had to stay in to receive a couch.  Ugh. After another in house lunch, we went to work with not much on our schedule.
Miracle #702: Despite not having any real lessons planned, we got a lot of lessons in with people that we have not seen in a very long time.
    The funny part of the day was lunch when my companion said he wasn’t hungry so I ate alone.  But when the other elders got home to eat, he was all of a sudden starving, so we spent another hour joking around and eating. The other funny part of the day was walking into a house with a Brazilian telenovela on.  Not gonna lie, the girls in that show were absolutely stunning.  I was a LOT a bit hypnotized.  It was funny because we were with an RM of less than a year and all three of us we just stunned by the women in that show.
July 12, 2016
    Great day today! This morning we had district meeting and I had divisions with Elder Crane.  For lunch we went to Aracely and ate with J.  He taught me quite a few native expression of Chile that I wish I hadn’t heard.  Today we just had lessons and members with us all day long. First, I got mixed up between two Byrons in our ward and called the wrong one to set up a division. It caused a rather amusing confusion which took a while to resolve.  After that, we had a few lessons wth Aracely and one was really incredible.
Miracle #703: We went to visit V., one of the contacts from our consecration week and had one of the best lessons of my entire mission.
    Instead of telling the funny part of the day, I just want to explain the lesson in more detail.  We basically got there and had to wait for V. to get home in order to teach.  When he got home, we started chatting and he asked what “restrictions” we have as a church.  I very briefly explained the law of chastity and then we went right into the lesson.  He asked some excellent questions and the spirit was really strong. It was one of the very few lessons that I have taught where the Spirit told me that I needed to ask him how he was feeling.  He said that he felt at peace and when I asked if he had ever felt like that before, he said, no.  He got very emotional and we were all overwhelmed with the power of the spirit.  We testified that it was the Holy Ghost testifying to him of the truths that we taught.  At that point he and his wife looked at each other and said, “Well, it looks like we are going to need to get married.”  I almost shouted for joy.  Missionaries live for lessons like that one.  If marriages could happen faster here in Chile, then they could be baptized by the end of my mission, but that is very unlikely.

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